Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the land use planning processes prior to mineral extraction in the circumpolar Canadian North. I argue for a focus on reading the land as a way to have a more profound understanding of the conflicts, diversity and similarity of different interests, and the ongoing struggles of indigenous peoples with outsiders

Paper long abstract:

The circumpolar Canadian North has become the stage of sensitive and contentious politics, a diversity of conflicting perspectives and interests, and an exemplary case of the complexity of mineral extraction, and environmentalist, frontiers in indigenous lands. This paper examines the current Peel River Watershed resource development and land use planning processes, and the different and similar histories and articulations of several stakeholders. At first sight the mining industry, environmental organizations, tourist operators, and hunting outfitters appear to be very opposite and contradictory, but starting with the premise of lectio/legere terram or reading the land there is a striking similarity in the ways how these stakeholders 'read' the respective Peel River Watershed and articulate themselves in reports, political meetings, and media. These readings predominantly silence, dismiss, or ignore those of indigenous peoples. During Between the Enemy Lines I will investigate the processes prior to resource extraction, make suggestions where anthropological fieldwork can contribute, and has fallen short, in the detailed investigation of different stakeholders in a land use planning process, and argue for ethnographic fieldwork as tool to examine and understand the different readings in life.